AKRON,
Ohio (Reuters) - Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump urged the
Justice Department on Monday to appoint a special prosecutor to
investigate if donors to the Clinton Foundation got special treatment
from the State Department when it was run by his Democratic rival,
Hillary Clinton.
Trump
made the appeal at a rally before thousands of cheering supporters in
Akron, Ohio, as he tries to rebound from a slide in national opinion
polls with little more than two months to go until the Nov. 8 election.
Trump
accused former President Bill Clinton and his wife of turning the
Clinton Foundation charity into a "pay-for-play" scheme in which wealthy
donors, foreign and domestic, got favors from the State Department
during Hillary Clinton's 2009-2013 tenure as the country's top diplomat.
Trump
faulted both the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation
for not indicting Clinton over her use of a private email server as
secretary of state. FBI Director James Comey cited her careless handling
of classified emails but opted not to prosecutor her.
"The
Justice Department is required to appoint a special prosecutor because
it has proved to be, sadly, a political arm of the White House," Trump
said. "Nobody has ever seen anything like it before."
Trump's
appeal came the same day a conservative watchdog group, Judicial Watch,
released 725 pages of State Department documents, including some it
said were examples of preferential treatment provided to donors at the
request of former Clinton Foundation executive Douglas Band.
Trump's
call for an independent investigation followed an announcement by the
Clinton Foundation that it would no longer accept foreign donations
should Clinton be elected president.
The
Clinton campaign fired back at Trump, saying the foundation had already
laid out "the unprecedented steps the charity will take if Hillary
Clinton becomes president."
Clinton
campaign chairman John Podesta said in a statement that Trump "needs to
come clean with voters about his complex network" of businesses that
are in debt to big banks, including the state-owned Bank of China, after
a New York Times report on the subject.
"Donald
Trump should stop hiding behind fake excuses and release his tax
returns and immediately disclose the full extent of his business
interests," Podesta said.
SEEKING TO EXPAND BASE
While
keeping up the attack on Clinton, Trump in his speech also outlined
some agenda items, as Republicans have been urging him to do for months.
The more disciplined Trump followed a campaign shake-up last week that
brought in veteran pollster Kellyanne Conway as campaign manager.
But
in a sign that organizational challenges remain, Trump canceled a rally
planned for later this week in Las Vegas and postponed an immigration
speech in Denver.
Earlier
on Monday, Trump insisted he was not "flip-flopping" on immigration,
despite a comment by Conway on Sunday that his plan to deport 11 million
illegal immigrants was still under review.
In
his Akron remarks, Trump, struggling to broaden his support beyond the
white working-class voters who have been his base of support, again
urged blacks and Hispanics to give him a chance, saying: "What the hell
do you have to lose?" repeating a line he delivered on Friday that was
criticized by Clinton as "ignorant."
Trump
said Democratic politicians had not been able to stem crime and poverty
in inner cities despite pledges to do every election year.
"I
say it and I'm going to keep saying it and some people say: 'Wow that
makes sense' and some people say: 'That's not very nice,'" Trump said.
"And I say it with such a deep-felt feeling, what do you have to lose?
We’ll bring jobs back. We’ll bring spirit back. We'll get rid of the
crime."
